Saturday, August 24, 2013

Apricot Sours, and the Aegean

Sailing between the
Greek islands as I turned twenty, Hydra to Rhodes and Rhodes to Crete and Crete
to Santorini, the pearls my grandparents had given me, one by one every year,
the strand of au lait-colored
cultured pearls, breaking and spilling down the rough-weave dress I’d bought
myself in Athens, in the Plaka, spilling all across the shipboard floor.Sailing the Aegean at twenty and
drinking apricot sours on deck—delighted equally by both.

Somehow the
pleasure isn’t quite the same today...though I did find a jar of maraschino
cherries in the fridge, hiding behind the harissa. (Is that what's known as eclectic tastes?)